It seems that someone at The Australian this wonderful rant that the ABC is otu of step with the military because of it's evil left wing views. This opinion has partially formed by that most extreme left-wing mouthpiece, At The Movies!

Yes, it seems that David Stratton, on reviewing Jarhead, a movie based on the real life experiences of a sniper as a new recruit and in action in Desert Storm. Stratton is quotes as saying "The incredible ugly and demeaning training sequences ... (sic) raises all kinds of questions about the morality of the way soldiers are trained these days."

A quick research on the book and the film shows that the author, one Tony Swofford, happens to show the brutality of training, the barely constrained bloodlust of soldiers waiting for battle, the desecration of enemy bodies and the thoughts of suicide in the US army. Maybe this is why Stratton is raising his question.

But no, according to Sheridan, Stratton is attacking our wonderful Army, soldiers and veterans Australians love and hold dear. Stratton is gushing with patriotism. There is no way they could be "dehumanised monsters" Stratton is so obviously calling them.

So, Mr Sheridan, let's pick up on two month old movie review and pick on those two words. And let's go on to say that no veteran he has ever met has been a "dehumanised monster", while wilfully ignorng the veterans with a mental illness and other behavioural problems, and how these problems affect their families. He has obviously never been to a soup kitchen in any major city.

Mr Sheridan, being in the military can really screw you up. The whole training process aims to change a recruit's behaviour. Sure it does not mean that the soldier will come out a brutal monster, but they won't be the same as they were when they went in. It is by a lot of blindly believing that the soldiers are heroes and great professionals that causes veterans groups to come out every ANZAC Day and point out the phsycological damage that was incurred.

And surely we can praise the professionalism of those in who helped out in Iraq, Indonesia or the Solomons, as Sheridan does, but are you saying that none of the soldiers have not been affected in any way by the human suffering or the pointless deaths? That none need counselling? If there is one lesson to be learnt for Jarhead, it is that training does not prepare soldiers for the full truth of active service.

And surely Stratton's comments are timely, as stories (here,here) come out of Russian army recruits being maimed during training come to light. Sure the Russian soldiers are persecuting those responsible, but they trained those soldiers in the first place.

Sheridan then actually highlights Lateline, where Tony Jones had a story of an ex-Liberal staffer and academic Steve Barton who wrote this piece in The Australian called "A myth generated by Labor", about how Manning Clark and Paul Keating eulgised Kokoda when, in which Barton argues, that Kokoda was not the most important battle fought by the Australians during the Second World War. Far enough, Barton is merely engaging in an existing history war in Australia that has been going on for a while, but you might think that the fact the article came out the day before ANZAC Day and was condemned by the RSL might just make it newsworthy. That Sheridan thinks the ABC only picked up the story because it was right versus left and ABC were fighting the good fight is a bit thin, especially as the contrary opinion in the Lateline story was given by a centralist historian.

But more tellingly, in this week of ANZAC Day and the Kovco saga, Sheridan not once highlights an example of either where the ABC showed any left-wing bias. Nowhere did he show that teh brodcaster did not give an unbiased view of these stories.

In fact Sheridan is merely hijacking the sentiments of ANZAC week to make what ends up being a feeble attack on the ABC just before it might actually get a funding increase in the next budget. Is htat in keeping with the ANZAC spirit?

I think not.